Gas blow up

THREE renegade councillors have broken ranks to give South Gippslanders the chance to express their opinions about coal seam gas (CSG).

South Gippsland Shire Council recently refused an attempt by councillors Andrew McEwen, Don Hill and Kieran Kennedy to formally consult the community about coal seam gas and the potential risks to the shire.

At the August council meeting, those councillors unsuccessfully called for council to consult the community via the OurSay online portal but other councillors did not support their initiative.

Now those councillors have opened their online survey to give the community a chance to have its say.

“I feel we have the perfect opportunity to go and ask the community,” Cr Kennedy said.

“The people from the length and breadth of this shire want us to do as much as we can to protect our agricultural industry, much like the area of Margaret River (Western Australia) where the council voted to ban CSG.

“We want to protect our agricultural land for years to come.”

Cr Kennedy said he received many calls from ratepayers disappointed in the outcome of the August council meeting regarding CSG.

Cr Hill added, “I think we should be doing something ourselves to let the government know of the community’s concerns.”

The survey asks:

• should council request an exemption and permanent ban from the Victorian Government for CSG activities within South Gippsland Shire?;
• should council have voted to use council’s online OurSay platform to gather community ratepayer responses to the CSG issue rather than vote the proposal down in the August council meeting?;
• council has to date not made any submission to the Victorian Government inquiry on CSG despite being requested to do so at the parliamentary inquiry at Sale in June. Do you think council should have made a submission by now?; and
• how do you rate the council with regard to representing your views on this issue?

Cr Jim Fawcett was disappointed by the nature of the survey questions, saying they urged the community to question council’s decision.

“Council should not be putting itself between government and the community. The government is out there asking about opinions about it. Council should not be putting itself in between,” he said.

“We should be asking people to tell the State Government because otherwise it is filtering those opinions.”

Cr Fawcett said most people knew council opposed CSG on prime agricultural land and said he was concerned people are worrying about CSG mining when it may never happen in South Gippsland.

Results of the survey will be presented to council in October.

The councillors will ask council to include the feedback in an officers’ report and that council presents the community views to the State Government’s CSG inquiry now underway.

The link is to the survey is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6L6VFNH
The councillors have more information about CSG on their website: http://progressivereformforsouthgippsland.weebly.com/

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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Sep 8 2015. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry